The Art of Baking: A Sweet Potato Muffin Recipe

As we begin our journey to create the perfect sweet potato muffins, it's essential to understand that these delicious treats are full of natural sugar. To harness this sweetness, we'll be using a few simple ingredients, including one or two small sweet potatoes, which will provide the necessary sweetness and moisture to our muffins.

The first step in preparing our sweet potatoes is to poke them with a skewer and cook them in the microwave for about 15 minutes, ensuring they are very well done. Once cooked, we'll let them cool down before using them in our recipe. This process may seem time-consuming, but it's crucial in achieving the perfect texture and flavor in our muffins.

With our sweet potatoes ready, it's time to move on to the dry ingredients. We'll be combining whole wheat flour, pastry flour, salt, cinnamon, baking powder, and baking soda to create a well-balanced mixture that will provide structure and flavor to our muffins. The use of whole wheat flour is particularly noteworthy, as it offers numerous health benefits and adds a nutty flavor to our muffins.

Next, we'll prepare the wet ingredients, which include eggs, melted butter, canola oil or vegetable oil, milk, and full-fat yogurt. It's essential to whisk these ingredients together thoroughly to ensure that they're well combined and create a smooth, even batter. We'll also be using a significant amount of sweet potato puree in our wet mixture, as the natural sweetness will help balance out the flavor.

Now that we have both our dry and wet ingredients prepared, it's time to combine them. Gently folding the two mixtures together will ensure that we don't overwork the batter, which can lead to tough or dense muffins. Once the batter is combined, we'll add in some chocolate chips for an extra layer of flavor.

Before loading our pre-papered muffin tin with the batter, it's essential to inspect our mixture one last time to ensure that everything is well combined and there are no lumps or dry spots. This final check will guarantee that our muffins turn out perfectly uniform and delicious.

Finally, we'll top our muffins with some rolled oats for a crunchy texture and a touch of sweetness. The use of rolled oats may seem unconventional, but it adds a delightful complexity to the flavor profile of our muffins.

With our sweet potato muffin batter ready, we'll load our pre-papered tin and pop them into the oven at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for about 35 minutes. Once baked, we'll let the muffins cool on a wire rack before enjoying their moist, fluffy goodness.

The finished product is truly exceptional, with a delicate balance of flavors that will leave you wanting more. The natural sweetness of the sweet potatoes provides a perfect base for our muffins, while the addition of chocolate chips adds a delightful twist. Whether you're looking to satisfy your cravings or experiment with new ingredients, these sweet potato muffins are sure to impress.

The art of baking is all about experimenting and finding the perfect balance of flavors and textures. With this recipe, we've managed to create a truly exceptional muffin that's both healthy and delicious. So go ahead, give it a try, and experience the joy of baking for yourself!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey guys I am Jeffrey Zakarian as you can see I'm in my home in my home kitchen I'm so excited you're joining us today we are making something really yummy a whole wheat chocolate chip muffin now these are really interesting because there's no sugar in them we're using actually something called a sweet potato and it's going to make it super delicious but before we begin there are a couple of things I need you to have done as a little homework so number one get your oven preheated to 375 degrees number two line of muffin tin with 12 liners and you should have a melted stick of butter all right now as they always talk about I talk about mesoplast why are we going to have a successful day in a successful teaching lesson today because everything is measured out and perfect we're ready to begin firstly we have to get these sweet potatoes cooking now I love sweet potatoes because they are full of vitamins and they're full of natural sugar what I'm going to do is take one or a couple of small ones just poke them them with one of these beautiful skewers you have these anywhere and we're going to use these after to actually you could test the muffins with these to make sure they come out dry we're going to put those in the microwave for about 15 minutes make sure they're very very well done it has to be cooked and soft when they come out put them right in the fridge and let them cool down and when they're cool we're gonna make our recipe so hit pause and let's get these done all right we're back I have my potatoes they've shrunk quite a lot but they're cool and just take a knife open it up and over the bowl squish them in there like that and any extra just go in and dig you don't want to waste this so it'll like again like you're making guacamole scoop it out and then we're going to start our dry ingredients okay so very simple whole wheat flour really very good for you all measured out our pastry flour then we're going to have salt and salt is always needed in baking always if you don't have salt it's not going to taste right cinnamon baking powder and baking soda baking soda is single acting baking powder is double acting so you have two leaveners in this particular recipe we're just gonna get this together now on to the wet ingredients okay so we have in here our sweet potatoes we're going to add two eggs and what I like to do is before I add everything else I like to whisk this together so you want to make sure that these sweet potatoes are really mashed together with the eggs okay that's nice and smooth we're gonna add our melted butter we're gonna add our canola oil or vegetable oil our milk whole milk and our full fat yogurt notice no sugar the sweetness comes from the sweet potato really delicious so we have that mixed and if you see little bits and pieces it's certainly okay because it's texture and I am a member of Team texture okay our dry and our wet we'll put that in so to mix it once and get the other batch in like that and then the magic ingredient that ingredient makes everything good chocolate chips foreign until everything is combined and it's going to start to look like a batter and once you see that it is actually folded stop folding if you overwork the batter you will develop the gluten and you will have bread not a muffin okay just about there nothing else dry and just take a look at that one more time so you can see that's what it should look like all right we are ready to load our pre-papered muffin tin what I like to do is go all around with less than a full amount just to make sure that we're not heavy-handed in any one of the other ones and I love this you know a lot of people ask me what my first job was in the kitchen and actually it was a souffle Chef so I know I don't do a lot of baking on camera and sweets on camera but when I went to luceric in 1982 it's a chef that was working there one of his assistants hurt himself burned himself badly and they the chef looked at me and said go over and you're the souffle Chef now and I had never made it Souffle in my life and that night I think we made a hundred plus souffles that night and every night for the next probably six or eight months while I was at that station and to this day it's something I actually love making now we're going to just make sure that we top them all off certainly if you have a little left over you can freeze it or you can make a few more so if they're cragly on top it's good because the last ingredient is sort of the real icing on the cake or on the muffin we're gonna top it with some rolled oats don't worry if it gets all over the place it doesn't matter going to sprinkle them on top and these are going to rise you get that crunchy oatmeal flavor all the goodness of the sweet potato and of course the chocolate okay we're going to take our muffins into the oven 375 around 35 minutes make sure you take them out and put them on a wire rack to cool hit pause and we'll taste together look at this here they are nice and cooled they look delicious look how they've come out a little bit a little fluffier and higher I'm gonna take a edge I like the top I like to steal the top of muffins and the edges of meatloaf I'm a thief of taste hmm it's an exceptional muffin because it's moist it's not sweet you don't lack for anything with this muffin so so delicioushey guys I am Jeffrey Zakarian as you can see I'm in my home in my home kitchen I'm so excited you're joining us today we are making something really yummy a whole wheat chocolate chip muffin now these are really interesting because there's no sugar in them we're using actually something called a sweet potato and it's going to make it super delicious but before we begin there are a couple of things I need you to have done as a little homework so number one get your oven preheated to 375 degrees number two line of muffin tin with 12 liners and you should have a melted stick of butter all right now as they always talk about I talk about mesoplast why are we going to have a successful day in a successful teaching lesson today because everything is measured out and perfect we're ready to begin firstly we have to get these sweet potatoes cooking now I love sweet potatoes because they are full of vitamins and they're full of natural sugar what I'm going to do is take one or a couple of small ones just poke them them with one of these beautiful skewers you have these anywhere and we're going to use these after to actually you could test the muffins with these to make sure they come out dry we're going to put those in the microwave for about 15 minutes make sure they're very very well done it has to be cooked and soft when they come out put them right in the fridge and let them cool down and when they're cool we're gonna make our recipe so hit pause and let's get these done all right we're back I have my potatoes they've shrunk quite a lot but they're cool and just take a knife open it up and over the bowl squish them in there like that and any extra just go in and dig you don't want to waste this so it'll like again like you're making guacamole scoop it out and then we're going to start our dry ingredients okay so very simple whole wheat flour really very good for you all measured out our pastry flour then we're going to have salt and salt is always needed in baking always if you don't have salt it's not going to taste right cinnamon baking powder and baking soda baking soda is single acting baking powder is double acting so you have two leaveners in this particular recipe we're just gonna get this together now on to the wet ingredients okay so we have in here our sweet potatoes we're going to add two eggs and what I like to do is before I add everything else I like to whisk this together so you want to make sure that these sweet potatoes are really mashed together with the eggs okay that's nice and smooth we're gonna add our melted butter we're gonna add our canola oil or vegetable oil our milk whole milk and our full fat yogurt notice no sugar the sweetness comes from the sweet potato really delicious so we have that mixed and if you see little bits and pieces it's certainly okay because it's texture and I am a member of Team texture okay our dry and our wet we'll put that in so to mix it once and get the other batch in like that and then the magic ingredient that ingredient makes everything good chocolate chips foreign until everything is combined and it's going to start to look like a batter and once you see that it is actually folded stop folding if you overwork the batter you will develop the gluten and you will have bread not a muffin okay just about there nothing else dry and just take a look at that one more time so you can see that's what it should look like all right we are ready to load our pre-papered muffin tin what I like to do is go all around with less than a full amount just to make sure that we're not heavy-handed in any one of the other ones and I love this you know a lot of people ask me what my first job was in the kitchen and actually it was a souffle Chef so I know I don't do a lot of baking on camera and sweets on camera but when I went to luceric in 1982 it's a chef that was working there one of his assistants hurt himself burned himself badly and they the chef looked at me and said go over and you're the souffle Chef now and I had never made it Souffle in my life and that night I think we made a hundred plus souffles that night and every night for the next probably six or eight months while I was at that station and to this day it's something I actually love making now we're going to just make sure that we top them all off certainly if you have a little left over you can freeze it or you can make a few more so if they're cragly on top it's good because the last ingredient is sort of the real icing on the cake or on the muffin we're gonna top it with some rolled oats don't worry if it gets all over the place it doesn't matter going to sprinkle them on top and these are going to rise you get that crunchy oatmeal flavor all the goodness of the sweet potato and of course the chocolate okay we're going to take our muffins into the oven 375 around 35 minutes make sure you take them out and put them on a wire rack to cool hit pause and we'll taste together look at this here they are nice and cooled they look delicious look how they've come out a little bit a little fluffier and higher I'm gonna take a edge I like the top I like to steal the top of muffins and the edges of meatloaf I'm a thief of taste hmm it's an exceptional muffin because it's moist it's not sweet you don't lack for anything with this muffin so so delicious\n"